by NOEMI LOPINTO

The Quebec Human Rights Commission wants Jean Charest to implement new rights recognition in Quebec's 29-year-old Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At the end of 2003, the Commission sent the provincial government a 435-page report, the first in-depth analysis of Charter failings since its genesis in 1975. They are asking the government to guarantee the right to housing, health, employment and education. So far, no response.

The Commission's research director, Pierre Bosset, says government silence may mean nothing, or everything. "In a way it's the wrong time, because the government's attitude seems potentially opposed," Bosset says. "But then again maybe not. It may provide a counter balance. If you read the pre-election Liberal party platform carefully, they also recommended the right to housing. But there is always a gap between electoral promises and government policy."

The Quebec Charter is a legal skeleton, a framework which recognizes intrinsic rights and freedoms that ensure protection to all citizens from discrimination. The Commission's role is to promote and enforce the Charter, investigate cases of discrimination, protect children's rights, criticize legislation when it is judged discriminatory and make recommendations to the Ministers of Health and Social Services, Education and Justice. A team of three people spent three years writing the report, poetically entitled "The Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms - Report and Recommendations."

Some of the recommendations are an expansion of existing Charter rights. For example, economic rights are already recognized, but not the right to housing, education or employment. For Bosset, the three are intimately linked to social and economic equality. The report also stresses the importance of health as a right. Currently, there exists a right to life and to aid in times of need, but that's all.

"The right to work doesn't mean access to any specific job," explains Bosset. "It means the right to programs and services which help you to find work, for welfare recipients or the unemployed. There are programs in place but they are not considered rights and there is no guarantee that they will stay in place. There should be a minimum standard below which you can't go."

François Saillant, coordinator for housing advocacy group FRAPRU, says the housing recommendation alone might not solve the problem of homelessness, but in combination with another commission recommendation, the guarantee of the right to a "decent life," "might make it interesting," he says. "If the welfare law doesn't foresee decent life then the Charter is useless. With the right combination, a homeless man could sue the government for a lack of housing. It would open a lot of doors."

Bosset says the gap between the rich and the poor has widened in 25 years, and is one of the reasons the recommendations focus so intently on guarantees for the poor. "The values that were present in 1975 are still valid," says Bosset. "What we have seen is that economic rights have recognition, but they are mostly statements of good will. We want them to have legal scope."